A key focus of this blog is the history of Jacksons in Ireland. I am specially curious about those who may be related to Sir Thomas Jackson (1841-1915). His life is key to understanding how a dozen or so young men, sons of Irish tenant farmers, shaped the future of international banking in the Far East in the late 1800s. I also use this blog as a place for playful posts: book and restaurant reviews, recipes, and events in my life. WARNING: Note the date of each post. Some may be outdated.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Angela, Stacia, Vanessa & The Moi, cooked dinner for 25 at
Roberts Creek Cohousing
yesterday. What totally delighted us, over and above how the food turned out, was
that there was enough left over to feed the children of a friend of ours who is
currently in hospice with a terminal brain tumour. A small blessing in a hard
time.

To accompany the vegetable stew, we served quiche made with eggs
from our own chickens (and also Stacia’s celebrated butter-pastry), salad - which
included garlic from the Cohousing garden, home-made bread (with freshly ground
flour) & Vanessa’s strawberry ice-cream. Angela, being Angela, decorated
the tables with flowers and candles to add that extra bit of pizzazz. One word
sums it up: Fun. Ok, maybe two words
are needed: Total Fun. Absolutely!

Iranian Vegetable
Stew with dried lime

Some of the ingredients used by Yotan Ottolenghi are
impossible to come by on the Sunshine Coast. Instead of dried limes, I used a
mix of dried lemons (thank you Kinga) & calamamsi.
Instead of barberries,
I added dried cherries. It worked perfectly.

Monday, February 2, 2015

A friend from Gilford Castle in Co. Down sent me a card this
Xmas with the image of a water colour that she had painted of a robin. It looked just as expectant and trusting as the robins that I have seen at the feeders which she always sets up outside her
kitchen window.

Water colour by Christine Wright. 2014

Christine is one of those who is most faithful
when it comes to sending out the ritual Christmas card, usually hand-drawn. Unfortunately, I never was
any good at this. The last year that I got around to mailing any cards, even though I had addressed the envelopes and enclosed the cards at the appropriate
time, I didn’t get around to mailing them until Easter. That did make them
memorable.

Fortunately, I am much better when it comes to the tradition of parties. Twelfth Night is one that Andreas and I have hosted
over the years. There are a handful of friends who have been to every one. Since 2014, was to be our 30th celebration of Twelfth Night, we decided that it would
be a good time to make it our last. We wanted to go out with a bang, not a whimper.

Some background. We had started this ritual in 1982, when my mother was
slowly dying of cancer, and our youngest daughter had been given a medical
diagnosis that was beyond bleak. As part of seeking release from the darkness
of that year, I had decided to write down everything that I needed to let go of, and in
the company of others, I threw that piece of paper into a Jesus-big fire fueled with dried out Xmas trees, wrapping paper, and candle stubs. Our friends all did the same. In the three decades of hosting
this ritual event, we only had to miss hosting it twice – once because we were in
Winnipeg, and once because I got sick.

In later years, we expanded the ritual notion of what our Twelfth
Night fire was for, and included the expression of gratitude. We also started singing silly songs, such as The
Viking Song, sung while drinking Aquavit, and eating herring on pumpernickel. This was then followed with a chaser of beer. In one version of the song, apocryphal I am sure, this whole approach had something to do with what
fish needed in order to be able to swim upstream and regenerate. Metaphorical fish, I am sure.

Viking Andreas. Photo credit Russ Tkachuk

This year, as always, Andreas also performed his political rant. His
evisceration of Stephen Harper had us all joining him in the chorus:

Dog
my cat

Stomp
my hat

How
in heck does he get away with that.

A week after the party, I received
a video clip of two year old Emmet who had been there with his parents and grandmother. He was now performing his version of Andreas’ rant. I can’t help but smile about this. The last of our Twelfth Nights
may be done and gone, but it may very well be that toddler rap has already picked
up the torch.

Angela & Sharon - singing lustily. Photo credit Russ Tkachuk

This year, we had to cancel the ceremony of the fire because
of rain, but to fill the gap, Angela and I stood on a couple of chairs and sang: Does
your heart hang low. Partly, this was in celebration of the fact that
Kinga was well enough to be with us, but it was also a way to include
our thoughts for Kathleen, who was in hospice, and Nairn, who was once again
back in hospital. At the first Twelfth Night event that we celebrated up on
the Sunshine Coast, Nairn was five years old. When it was his turn to speak at
the fire, he said that he wished for everyone to be healthy, and he hoped that we would all
catch a big fish. In spite of the fact that he had already been helicoptered
into Vancouver once that year in critical condition, and would be repeatedly in the future, it is worth noting that he
didn’t ask for good health only for himself, but for all of us. His grandmother
was a member of the GitxsanWet'suwet'en, so after Nairn had spoken
his piece, his father Chris threw some ritually appropriate paper-money into
the fire.

Everything from our last Twelfth Night has now been packed
up and put away. So has the crèche that I always put out at Christmas. Like the
ritual party, it too has been three decades since I first made the Biblical figures, and
Andreas built the crèche to enclose them. My version departed somewhat from the usual picture of the event. Instead of three wise men, I included two men, and one wise woman who looked as much like Margaret
Laurence – godmother to Sabrina- as I was capable of doing.

Margaret’s death took place in a later January, although
she was still alive when I was making the nativity scene. She had laughed on the phone when I told her that I had included her. A few years after she died, the
whole crèche fell over. The angel lost its head, and Margaret lost her hands. The
thing about Margaret is that if I had been able to tell her about this turn of events, she would have replied, That’s all right
kiddo.

As I write this, my sort of a belatedly, year-end, writerly-clean-up, my Margaret-without-hands has once again been wrapped up in newsprint from the
last December edition of the Coast Reporter, along with Mary, Joseph, Jesus, and
the other wise-men. Also, the angel with its glue mark visible on its neck, has also been tucked back in with the shepherd, camel, and the boy holding a staff who kept watch on the
sheep.

Rituals. I am a sucker for them.

Margaret and two wise men

All assembled in Andreas' creche. I like seeing the shadow of the angel. It makes me think of raven myths.

About Me

Author And Researcher. I am currently writing a book on the life of Sir Thomas Jackson. He was the son of tenant farmers, born just before the Famine in South Armagh, who was knighted because he not only lead HSBC into the 20th Century, but was also responsible for assisting with the funding of much of the economic development in China & Japan in the late 1800s. My first published book was "Some Become Flowers: Living with Dying at Home".